HAVE you ever observed how people smother their French fries and popcorn with salt? And how Filipinos, particularly those from the North, reach for salted fish even if their viand had already been cooked with a dash of salt? Or do you have this habit of dipping that pre-salted fried or grilled meat in soy sauce or Calamansi or Philippine lime with (again!) salt? If you do, hold it! You may be salting your life away.
Actually, our body requires a little salt. Nutritionists say that the amount of salt needed to sustain life is 220 milligrams a day—the amount in one-tenth of a teaspoon. “Without this small amount,” medical experts claim, “you could feel weak or nauseous and an entirely salt less life will make you wither and finally go.”
But most people are overindulging in it, taking almost six to 10 times of the required amount. The result: kidney diseases, high blood pressure and unexplained itches and allergies or body rashes, among many others.
Just what is salt?
Salt is a term, which to a chemist means a certain kind or type of chemical compound formed by replacing all or part of the hydrogen ions or an acid with one or more metallic ions. Among the general public, salt is a colorless or white crystalline solid used as a food seasoning and preservative.
Salt has been used by human beings since earliest recorded times. In places where salt was in scarce supply, its commercial value was very, very high. As a matter of fact, the word “salary” is derived from the Latin word salarium, which simply means “money allowed to soldiers for the purchase of salt.”
Nowadays, salt is a highly processed commodity. Most salt is extracted from the ground by complex machinery, then refined and packaged in plastic, bottle or carton containers. Manufacturers add magnesium bicarbonate and silicate in small proportions to keep the salt from clumping in humid weather.
Some department stores have health avenues that carry a “sea salt” line, which is supposedly “safer and healthier.” Experts say that this type of salt hardly differs in effect from the “ordinary salt.” Explains one doctor: “Sea salts may have a better flavor but they still produce the same biochemical effects on our body.”
The issue really lies in how much salt we consume each day. Without our conscious awareness, most of the items included in a recipe already contain sodium, yet we add salt as we cook. Potato chips, soy sauce, ketchup, pickles and sauerkraut are loaded with salt. But do you think of cheese, cereals, bread, meat, pudding, pancakes, soups, tuna fish and tomato juice as salt foods? Probably, not. Yet, they are heavily laced with salt and additives such as sodium nitrate, sodium phosphate, sodium ascorbate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and even saccharin, as well as other sources of sodium, including leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda.
Even foods that taste like non-salty have high amounts of sodium—milk, mayonnaise, celery, and baby preparations, to mention a few. Dr. Jean Mayer, president of Tufts University, pointed out: “Infants on bottle milk and formula are clearly consuming generous amounts of salt.” Mother’s milk, by itself, contains about 7 milligrams of salt per liter; processed cow’s milk, more than 25 milligrams.
Why so much fuss about salt?
Medical researches in recent years have linked the “king of seasonings” to high blood pressure—hypertension, in medical parlance—and its potentially fatal consequences: heart and kidney diseases and stroke.
According to nutritionist-writer Jane Brody, the trouble with salt is in the mineral called sodium, which is 40 percent of the salt molecule by weight. “Of course, sodium is a vital constituent of the human body,” wrote Brody in her best seller, Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book. “Our tissues swim in a salty sea…The more salt in that sea, the more water is needed to dilute it, to maintain the proper concentration of sodium.”
Brody further wrote: “Sodium and its equally essential companion chloride are the principal regulators of the balance of water and dissolved substances outside cells. Virtually all vital functions, including nerve impulses and heart action, depend on that balance.” When disturbed, normal metabolism may grind to a near halt.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, here is how salt affects our body and how it will lead to hypertension and its consequent health dangers:
“It is the kidneys which maintain the normal level of sodium in the body,” said Dr. Marcelo Agana Jr., a Filipino physician who has a long and varied experiences as consultant of some prestigious companies in the Philippines. “Where there is too much sodium, the kidneys excrete it. Conversely, when the body needs sodium, the kidneys maintain it them pump it back to the blood.
“But when the kidneys fail to excrete enough sodium, the retained sodium hold water, raising the volume of blood, and because more blood now has to pass through channels which are now narrower, the blood pressure increases and the heart has to work overtime pumping more blood; hence, the heart rate also increases.”
Aside from increasing the volume of blood, Agana said, the extra sodium also increases the amount of water in and around body tissues, resulting in swelling or a fluid overload which can cause congestive heart failure.
Agana continued: “When one considers that the minimum requirement of the human body is about 220 milligrams, then the danger becomes clear. And when one realizes that Asians are growing more and more dependent on factory and/or processed foods, then the danger becomes alarming, all the more since such foods do not indicate to the consumers the amount of salt they contain.”
Here’s a very interesting finding. Hypertension is reportedly non-existent in cultures where little or no salt is added to foods. American researchers in Harvard University examined the health data of people living in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Those who lived in the hills and who didn’t have any sense of salting their food did not have any case of hypertension. Residents of a village near a lagoon who boiled their vegetables in the salty water had a lot of hypertensive natives.
A similar study was made of people living in the Akita region of Northern Japan. These people preserved much of their food in salt, consuming three-and-a-half to six teaspoonfuls a day. The leading cause of death in the area was stroke.
More bad news. In a study conducted at the Department of Community Medicine of St. Thomas Hospital in London, researchers discovered that table salt could have life-threatening effect on asthma. “A strong correlation was found between table salt purchases and asthma mortality in both men and children,” reported the researchers. Buying the salt wasn’t killing people; eating it was.
Salt can also make your hemorrhoids worse. “Excess salt retains fluids in the circulatory system that can cause bulging of the veins in the anus and elsewhere,” explained Dr. John Lawder, a family practitioner specializing in nutrition and preventive medicine in Torrance, California.
Taking too much salt is not also advisable for people suffering from headaches. “High salt intake can trigger migraines,” according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies.
If you’re suffering from breast pain, cut back on salt, advised Dr. Norman Schulman, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Cyclical breast pain, he said, is associated with fluid retention. “Reducing your sodium intake is particularly important a week or so before your period,” he said.
What about those having premenstrual syndrome? “Go on a low-sodium diet for seven to 10 days before the onset of your period to offset water retention,” advised Dr. Penny Wise Budoff, director of the Women’s Medical Center in Bethpage, New York. “This means no restaurants, processed foods, Chinese food, commercial soup, or bottled salad dressing.”
Give salt a shake-off
If you are one of those who are almost addicted to salt, shake off the habit gradually. Addiction means more salt or salty sauces to food which had been already cooked or prepared with the substance.
In her book, Brody shared some tips on how to reduce harmful amounts of sodium in your diet:
Start by not adding any salt at the table.
Reduce the salt you use in cooking by cutting in half the salt in a recipe. Then as you get used to less and less salt, cut it in half again and again, until you need to add only a tiny fraction of the original amount, if any.
Experiment with condiments, herbs, spices, and other seasonings, using them in place of salt. Onions and garlic are favorites. Dry mustard and lemon juice are also possibilities. But don’t use soy sauce, MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein or bouillon cubes, since they all contain lots of sodium.
Reduce your dependence on processed foods, especially canned soups and vegetables (unless they are labeled low-sodium), factory-prepared meals, processed meals and cheeses. Substitute fresh meats and fresh or frozen vegetables.
Try to avoid suing salt substitutes in which all or part of the sodium has been replaced by potassium, unless advised by a physician. There’s a danger of overloading on potassium.
If you have high blood pressure, check with your doctor before taking antacids, cough preparations, laxatives and vitamin C sold as sodium ascorbate (ascorbic acid is acceptable). Many of these items are high in sodium.
In general, avoid fast-food restaurants. Nearly all their foods are heavily laden with sodium. On airplanes, order a low-sodium meal when you make your reservation. If you travel, you may want to stock up on your own salt-free foods in your hotel room.
“The main drawback to kicking the salt habit is that the generously salted foods you may encounter when dining out will taste too salty,” stressed Brody. “You may even find some inedible. But for most people, this is a small price to pay for a more healthful diet.” взять в займы ночью на карту
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